How did the 20th year of the past 5 centuries look like for India and Indians
2020 is what wet dreams of a history book are made up of. This year has had enough drama for Indians to bore the guts out of the generations to come with their survival stories. 2020 had a nice ring to it, an alliterative rounded off number heralding a new decade; but as luck would have it, it will be remembered for all the wrong reasons. The thought of sneaking back into time through documented records and figuring out how the 20thyear of the last 5 centuries in India might have looked like intrigued me. If covid, lockdown, mental health, China skirmish, doomsday eclipse etc are keeping Indians occupied today, what concerned the people back then; or more fundamentally what was India back then?
1520: Glorious Vijaynagara under Krishnadev Raya and The Unease Before the Mughal Storm in Delhi
It has been 20 years since Peter Henlein invented the watch, the beginning of keeping time as we known it. This year marked a milestone in Europe’s Age of Discovery with Ferdinand Magellan navigating through the strait in South America which was later named after him, while a Small Pox outbreak wiped out entire cities in Mexico paving the way for swift colonisation of the New World. In the Indian subcontinent, the stability and prosperity forged by Sikander Lodi started withering away since his death in 1517. In Sultan Ibrahim Lodi, the throne at Delhi found a competent warrior but an incompetent political strategist. His alienation of his vassals and Afghan nobles had already brought Babur knocking at the gates of Delhi, who in 1520 carried raids and attacks in the frontier Punjab region. In 6 years’, time their fate and that of India would be sealed at the battleground of Panipant, starting the era of the great Mughals. Countering the power balance in Deccan against the various independent sultanates, was the kingdom of Vijaynagara. Under Krishnadev Raya the empire reached it zenith in 1520. According to a Portuguese trader travelling in Hampi around 1520, the might of the city rivalled that of Rome with copious vegetation, remarkable architecture and thoughtful public infrastructure. In the local politics, Dev Raya scored a major goal in that year by defeating the arch rival Adil Shah of Bijapur, which unfortunately also set the clocks ticking for a major conspiracy against the kingdom which would lead to its downfall and the pillage of its capital 45 years later. Under future Adil Shahs, Bijapur was set to become an important cosmopolitan center of India where commerce and art flourished. The enterprising Portuguese laid the foundation of European colonization around this time by making Goa their capital and setting up major factories along the deccan coasts of India, topping their European counterparts in the colonization race and becoming the last to leave India after the Goan annexation in late 20th century.
1620: Jahangir Chilling while the Europeans Fight at Sea
The son of Akbar and Harkha Bai, Emperor Jahangir was in his 15th year of rule in 1620. The influence of Nur Jahan in the Mughal court reached its zenith around this time with emperor occasionally falling sick but unwilling to give up his notorious wine and opium addiction. With the benefit of hindsight, Jahangir probably lead the most envied lifestyle of all Mughal emperor, inheriting a prosperous and stable empire in a politically dormant landscape. Monumentally, his “firman” granting the Thomas Roe mission rights to trade in Gujarat and establish a factory at Surat kindled the spark that would turn into the fire of British dominion of the subcontinent. The European expeditions to assess commercial viability of distant lands gained momentum during this period, with the Dutch sending their first expedition to India and Britain sending commercial ships to the New World. The Portuguese and English fought for domination in the Arabian sea off the coast of India, and by blissfully ignoring it the Mughals committed the strategic blunder of not developing any sort of naval capacity. But Jahangir was least concerned by the presence of these amusing and filthy foreigners, instead the “habshi” kingmaker of Deccan, Malik Ambar was the one who was giving him sleepless nights. Having come to the shores of India as an Abyssynian slave, Malik Ambar rose to the rank of regent to the Nizamshahi dynasty and effectively the kingmaker. He thwarted Jahangir’s attempt to capture the deccan multiple times and remained undefeated till death. He established Khadki, a modern city with state-of-the-art infrastructure in sync with the times, but as fate would have it the descendant of his nemesis later renamed it Aurangabad after himself.
1720: Political Turmoil in Mughal Court and Opportunism of Marathas, Nizam and EIC
The year 1720 accelerated the disintegration of Mughal empire and control of Delhi over it’s vassals, imminent in the politically instability that marked the decades post Aurngzeb’s death. The young emperor Muhammad Shah Rangeela got the powerful kingmakers Sayyid brothers murdered in order to secure the throne, but effectively lost control of the Deccan dominions to his wily and ambitious commanders. The vizier Asaf Jah 1 later established himself as the Nizam of Hyderabad in 1725, a non-tax paying vassal of the Mughal empire. The political turmoil presented opportunities to all the player vying for power, which was effectively seized by Baji Rao 1 who was crowned as the Peshwa in 1720. His reign would eventually set the stage for Marathas to become the major political player competing for dominance in the subcontinent against the British which would reach the climax a 100 year later. Under Baji Rao 1 the Marathas conducted various raid deep into the weakening Mughal territories, inflicting tactical as well psychological damage on the grand dynasty of India. However, defection and raids were a pale shadow of the barbaric invasion that Muhammad Shah and Delhi were subjected to by Nader Shah two decades later which irreversibly broke the back of Mughals. This year marked the beginning of the great political flux and decades of lawlessness in the subcontinent which would eventually be bought to a rest post 1857 when the British crown took over India for good. 1720 witnessed a major transition in the Mughal court as the official language was changed to Urdu from Persian, laying the foundation for the organic development of the Hindustani culture that prevails strongly till date. The EIC in 1720 surpassed the Dutch trading company in terms of sales, the city of Calcutta established in 1699 and fortified in 1715 was on its way to become India’s first major global metropolis and the second city of the empire in the decades to come. The present-day Kolkata Police Force traces it’s origin to the East India Company Police which was established in 1720.
1820: A Trading Company Rules Over India, the Clash of Delhi Urdu Culture and Calcutta Renaissance
1820 marked the second year of complete domination of EIC of the Indian subcontinent after the decisive victory over the last standing native power, the Marathas. India comprised of the three major presidencies of the British (Bengal, Bombay and Madras) and the native states as their agencies. The Mughal emperor Akbar II was reduced to the title of King of Delhi by the then Governor General Lord Rawdon Hastings, his empire barely stretching beyond the Red Fort, while his subordinates were adorned with the title of Nawabs (Oudh,Tonk etc). However, under his reign, Delhi became the mecca of a flourishing high culture. Urdu had become the literary language and the court patronised mehfils, qawwalis, mushairas, kathak and other local cultural traditions. It was in these circumstances that the celebrated poet Ghalib and his contemporaries found inspiration and rose to fame and prominence. The cultural steam in Delhi was rivalled by the modern import by British in Calcutta. By 1820, schools and college imparting western education was set up by missionaries, leading to the westernization of the Bengali populace. A class of educated Bengali developed and led the Bengal Renaissance which drew major influence from the contemporary culture of Britain, exemplified in the thinking and works of Raja Ram Mohan Roy. The social life in Calcutta, and other British towns, also transformed as around this time women from England started coming and settling in the city as wives of British administrators and officials; bringing along with themselves the Victorian values, morality and civilization which would have a profound impact on Indian society, reflective even today. However, the EIC which was primarily set up and organized as a trading company and not as an administrator machinery for a diverse subcontinent became too big for it’s shoes. Interventions and reforms from the British parliament checked their powers, which would lead to the revoking of trade rights and monopoly in 1853 and later dissolution of the greatest capitalist enterprise the world has ever seen post the debacle of 1857 mutiny.
1920: Launch of Non-Cooperation Movement and a Ravaging Pandemic
1920 marked the 9 years since British Raj’s symbolical move and strategical nonsense of shifting it’s capital to Delhi while the Hindi movie industry in Mumbai churned out multiple movies based on social issues and mythological dramas. Viceroy Chelmsford was nearing the end of his tenure, and reforms suggested by him in the Montagu-Chelmsford report had been adopted as the Government of India Act of 1919 which aimed at providing responsible government for India. However, this small progressive step will forever be marred in history as 1919 witnesses the barbaric massacre at Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar, where peaceful protestors were butchered on General Dyers command. Anti-British sentiment were at an all-time high and in response M.K. Gandhi planned the Non-Cooperation Movement which was launched at the Calcutta special session of Congress by Lala Lajpat Rai in 1920. The movement was the first one to demonstrate an all India unity and the organizational efficiency shocked the British. It encouraged Indian nationalists and led to the set-up of various Indian establishments such as factories, manufacturing units, schools and other public institutions. The railway network had expanded in the country by 1920 and facilitated the swifter movement cross country giving a boost to the national integration movement. And as luck would have it, the Indian society a 100 years ago was also dealing with a deadly flu outbreak. The Spanish Flu affected India the worst, with its dense cities and lack of basic hygiene, it is believed to have killed nearly 14–17 million Indians. The healthcare infrastructure in the country was unable to meet the surge of patients and important leaders of the day including Gandhi were infected by it. An eerie “history repeats itself” moment, the city of Bombay was the major outbreak hotspot even back then.
From being one of the most glorious cities of the world, 500 years later Hampi lies in a state of perpetual ruins. A language that had not reached the shores of the country, is what unites the country today while opening doors for her economic integration with the world. Changes in the more basic societal behavior such as food habits, entertainment, vocation etc are difficult to find with basic internet search, especially for years preceding the 20thcentury; but it is no stretch to conclude that our society has had a major transformation in a short geological timespan of the last 500 years; exponentially since the beginning of 20thcentury. This exercise also attempts to humanize history and look at kings and kingdoms as living societies of a time gone by rather than just trivia in history books; an idea that had found proponents in modern historians such as Manu S Pillai, William Darlymple, Ira Mukhothy etc. Also, it gives a perspective of the present-day Union of India which most of us take for granted as a singular cohesive unit; but which is a fairly young WIP idea evolved from a history of bloody fragmentation bought together by revolutionary modern ideas of the west. A hundred years from now, who knows what a 2120 India might look like or who might be called an Indian?
